


Reasons We Don't

by AirgiodSLV



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-27
Updated: 2007-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:31:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Why </i>don’t<i> we fuck?” Frank asks, tipping his head back to blow smoke at the sky.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasons We Don't

**Author's Note:**

> For the incomparable [](http://jocondite.livejournal.com/profile)[**jocondite**](http://jocondite.livejournal.com/), who deserves much more. Thanks to [](http://maleyka.livejournal.com/profile)[**maleyka**](http://maleyka.livejournal.com/) and [](http://bexless.livejournal.com/profile)[**bexless**](http://bexless.livejournal.com/) for the spectacular betas.

Warped Tour means a lot of partying, a lot of exhaustion, and a lot of hanging out with other bands. Everyone’s dirty and busy and tired all the time, just jazzed up enough to ignore it. There’s also the hours spent on the bus traveling from location to location, though, with nothing to do but entertain yourself or hope someone else is feeling gracious enough to do it for you, and those are the worst.

Frank decides it’s a good time to start knitting again.

“Dude,” Gerard says from somewhere near Frank’s ear. He’s spread out on the couch under one of Mikey’s blankets, recovering from a 24-hour stomach bug that has made the rounds and taken turns knocking them all flat. Gerard tries to blame Ray, but the timing isn’t right. By Bob’s tracking, it most likely came from one of the guys from Taking Back Sunday, who picked it up from Avenged Sevenfold, who got it from someone in Midtown around the same time Ray did.

“Dude,” Gerard says again, in the thin, pitiful voice he always uses when he’s sick or injured. “Why did you decide to start knitting in _July?_ It’s fucking a million degrees outside and you’re making scarves.”

“Mittens are hard,” Frank answers. He twists around on the floor to look up at Gerard, who’s still horizontal but has considerably more color than he did a few hours ago. “My stitches are more even now, though, check this shit out.”

Gerard snorts, but he does examine Frank’s handiwork for a good ten seconds before he gets bored and lapses back into looking pathetic. “I’m dying,” he declares unhappily.

“You’re not dying,” Frank says immediately. He scratches behind Gerard’s ears like he’s petting a cat, ruffling his hair. He’s not used to Gerard’s new hair yet, not completely. Sometimes he can only see the black framing his face, and then Gerard will turn around or lean down and Frank’s surprised by the tufts of blond.

He likes it, though. He thinks it makes Gerard look kind of like an exotic skunk, but in a really cool way.

“We’re all dying,” Gerard counters. He does look miserable. “A little every day. Slowly decaying until we finally fall apart.”

“That’s a cheerful thought,” Frank comments. He tugs a little on the longer strands, and Gerard’s eyes fall closed. “We’re also regenerating every day, growing new cells and things.”

“I’m not,” Gerard insists. “I’m fucking old.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” Frank agrees. He scratches more because Gerard seems to like it, and adds, “This isn’t so bad. You’ll be over it by tomorrow morning.” Ray hadn’t done more than retreat to his bunk for a day and occasionally ask someone to bring him some water, so Frank knows this is mostly Gerard being a drama queen. He knows what it’s like to be sick, though, so he’s still sympathetic.

“I could be dying,” Gerard decides vaguely. “In, like, an alternate universe. I could have leukemia or Parkinson’s or some shit.”

“We could all be dying, then,” Frank points out.

Gerard opens his eyes enough to study Frank through the slits. “I am dying,” he reminds Frank, but he’s smiling. “You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.”

“I’ll knit you a shroud,” Frank promises. “A really nice one.”

“Yeah?” Gerard’s eyes glitter with interest. “Will it have, like, black roses and bloody thorns and ravens?”

“A whole forest of bloody thorns,” Frank agrees. “With skeletons tangled in the vines. It’ll be like fucking Sleeping Beauty.”

“Cool,” Gerard says. His fingers twitch the way they always do when he wants a pencil. “Hey, is there any more coffee?”

“You’re not going to sleep,” Frank warns him, unraveling his row of stitches and sticking the needles back into his ball of yarn. “You’ve had six cups in the past hour.”

“I’m sick,” Gerard complains, like that makes any sense. He starts making the eyes, though, which Frank has only been able to ignore when Gerard is either shitfaced or using them to get Frank to stop being angry at him without actually apologizing.

“What if I made you decaf?” Frank asks, stretching. It’s past all of their bedtimes, really, but Warped does funny things to your internal clock. None of them have seen the right side of the sunrise in a long time.

Gerard wrinkles his nose in disgust. “That’s not coffee.”

“Amen,” Frank answers. Gerard is still giving him the eyes, so he relents, “Half a cup, if there’s any left. I’m not making a new pot, you’ll fucking drink it all and be a zombie tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Gerard agrees contritely, which means there’s probably coffee left and he knows it, the sneaky bastard.

Frank finds the pot still on with three-quarters of a cup left, so he pours it into Gerard’s mug and comes back to pass it into his greedy hands.

“You’re the best,” Gerard says sincerely. “You have my undying love and devotion.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Frank says affectionately. He kisses Gerard’s forehead, smoothes his rumpled hair down and says, “I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up all night.”

Gerard smiles sweetly from behind the rim of his coffee cup, which is cradled approximately half an inch away from his mouth. “Goodnight.”

*

“Frank,” someone whispers. Gerard. Frank tries to peel his eyelids apart to find out what he wants, but they stay stuck.

“Mmph,” he says.

“Frank,” Gerard whispers again, only this time it’s more of a hiss.

If Bob wakes up there will be hell to pay, so Frank flaps a hand around to communicate that he’s more or less awake and Gerard doesn’t have to whisper quite so vehemently.

There’s a pause, and then Gerard asks, “Why don’t we ever fuck?”

He smells like paint, Frank realizes. It’s a distinctive scent, and you can usually only smell it when it’s fresh, which means Gerard must have stayed up working instead of going to bed. He tries to say, ‘Don’t get paint on my nose,’ because that stuff itches like hell when it dries, but he’s still half-asleep and his mouth isn’t working yet, so it comes out more like, “Arnghfibrcke.”

“Frank,” Gerard says again.

Frank makes a valiant attempt to wake up. He manages to unglue his eyelids, and is greeted by the sight of Gerard standing by his bunk, watching him. He has Mikey’s blanket over his head, dark strands of hair escaping around the edges, and is peeking out earnestly like he really wants Frank to answer the question. Which is, well. Really fucking ridiculous.

“What time’sit?” Frank manages finally. His eyes sink closed again of their own volition, trying to lure him back into slumber.

“About five, I think,” Gerard says. “It’s still dark outside.”

Frank grunts something that would be a response, if his mouth was cooperating. ‘Why aren’t you sleeping?’ just seems like too much work.

“Frank,” Gerard presses. “Frankie. Why don’t we?”

People shouldn’t ask questions that require actual thought and consideration at certain hours of the morning. Frank settles for, “Lots of reasons,” and hopes that’s enough to make Gerard go away.

It isn’t. “Like what?”

Frank has half-burrowed under his pillow before he realizes what he’s doing. “Like lots of things,” he tries again, and then adds, “Can we talk about it in the morning?”

There’s a pause, and then Gerard says, “Okay.”

Frank makes a noise intended to convey his gratitude, and lets himself start drifting back to sleep. He’s nearly out when he realizes that Gerard is still standing there, watching him.

He jerks his eyes open and blinks muzzily. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Gerard blinks slowly from within the cocoon of his blanket-hood. “I couldn’t sleep,” he says, with a definite plaintive note in his voice. Since he’d spent the day and most of last night napping, when he wasn’t throwing up, Frank isn’t really all that surprised.

Frank himself has done this enough to the rest of them, though, particularly Gerard, so he just rolls over and fits himself against the edge of the bunk. “Come on,” he says sleepily.

Gerard crawls up and clambers over him, blanket and all, because he knows Frank can’t sleep trapped in a confined space, and plasters himself against Frank’s back. “Thanks,” he whispers.

Frank pats the air somewhere in the vicinity of Gerard’s arm. “Sleep,” he says, and then he’s dead to the world.

*

“Frank, stop hitting me with your arrows!”

“I’m sorry!” Frank yells, flailing a bit in Ray’s direction. “I forgot about the armor!”

“I told you,” Mikey says placidly. It’s true, and it’s Frank’s own fault for forgetting, especially since Mikey is probably the worst Dungeon Master ever who says things like, “I don’t know, there’s, uh, a rock,” and then unleashes the fiends of hell after making you traipse through fifteen empty rooms and a fairy mushroom circle.

It would be different if it was Gerard. Gerard would have gone on for five minutes about the smell of sulfur and the fierce claws and the chain mail tunic, and by the time he’d finished, everyone would have forgotten what it was they were fighting in the first place, much less that it was wearing armor. That is, if he’d mentioned it at all. Sometimes he didn’t.

“He was defending me,” Gerard puts in valiantly. Frank puckers up and Gerard leans in to peck him on the lips, grinning. “My hero.”

“Stop being gross,” Ray complains. “Bob, tell Frank not to hit me with arrows.”

Bob is busy playing with the prototype Bob Bryar action figure that represents his character. “How big was it again?” he asks.

“That wasn’t gross,” Frank says. He makes his action figure puts its arms around action-figure Gerard in support. “That was chaste and brotherly.”

“Yeah,” Gerard agrees, lifting his head off of Frank’s shoulder. “Mikey, c’mere.”

“No, I’m being the Dungeon Master,” Mikey says, but Gerard is already crawling over Frank on the couch, making grabby hands. They end up rolling on the floor in one of the girliest wrestling matches Frank has ever seen in his life, with Mikey protesting that he’s in character, even though Frank has seen Mikey let Gerard kiss him a hundred times.

“Is anyone still playing?” Ray asks, and then has to lunge to save the table when one of Mikey’s legs goes flailing through the air.

“I don’t know how big it is,” Bob points out. “I need to know how many heads there were.”

Since their Dungeon Master is currently being imprisoned in a headlock and noogied, Frank gets up and pats his pocket. “Smoke break,” he declares, stepping over the tangle of limbs and evading the foot that lashes out randomly in his direction.

He lights up and puffs for a while, thinking about how comfortable it feels doing stuff with Gerard, when nearly anyone else would consider it a big deal. He hears the door open behind him and assumes the wrestling match is over; Gerard has had one hand on his pack of cigarettes for the past twenty minutes, just waiting for a good time to take a break.

“Why _don’t_ we fuck?” Frank asks, tipping his head back to blow smoke at the sky.

There are several seconds of silence, and then Mikey’s voice strangles out, “Because I’m _straight._ ”

Frank chokes on a lungful of smoke and laughs so hard he tears up. “Sorry,” he says, turning and waving his half-burnt cigarette through the air. “I thought you were…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Mikey orders, his voice actually cracking a little. He steals Frank’s cigarette and sucks in a healthy amount of smoke before passing it back. “I just wanted to let you know we were starting again.”

“Thanks,” Frank says. “I’ll be right in.”

He smokes fast, dropping the butt in the grass and grinding it out with his heel. When he comes back in, Gerard is busy gesticulating over why you can’t attack a hydra with a sword, so Frank drapes himself over Mikey’s back and wraps his arms around Mikey’s neck.

“Mikey,” he croons. “Mikey, why don’t we ever fuck?”

Gerard stops talking, bewildered for a second before he slowly breaks into a smile.

Mikey turns red and shrugs him off with a liberal application of bony elbows. “Fuck off,” Mikey says, right before landing a blow to Frank’s stomach that sends him sliding to the floor.

Frank lands on his tailbone, but he’s laughing too hard to care.

*

It’s late at night even for them, nearing three-thirty in the morning, and when Frank cracks his neck and glances over, Gerard has that look in his eyes. It’s the one he always gets when he’s following a vision, creating; and since his fingers aren’t twitching, it must be music.

Frank watches him for a while in silence, and then asks, “Do you need a guitar?”

He and Ray usually split Gerard-time, putting the music in his head into chords, getting it out onto a recording or some hastily-scribbled tablature. It hasn’t happened with Frank recently, because the studio is still new, a novelty, and Ray has been practically living in there since they first had it installed.

Secretly, Frank’s always glad when he turns out to be the one around, the one creating and spinning something new out of Gerard’s head. It makes him feel special, chosen, and he loves sharing that just between the two of them.

Gerard shakes his head, blinking to focus his eyes on Frank, then says, “Maybe later.”

Frank goes back to reading, but he’s not seeing the words anymore, really. He’s still thinking about earlier, and Gerard’s question.

He and Gerard think in different ways. Gerard is always looking at the bigger picture; everything at once, colors and layers and textures, the way it all fits together into a grand design. Sometimes he loses himself in it, focusing on the details to try to fit them into the overall shape. It’s partly what makes him such a shitty driver; he tries to take in everything at once, and then something catches his eye and he focuses in on it, until the bigger picture snaps its fingers and tells him to pay attention, and then it startles him so much that he panics.

The thing is, Frank doesn’t necessarily see a whole picture, like their friendship, and think, ‘Why is it this way?’ He takes it one day at a time, one moment; like still frames making up a movie, or Gerard’s vampire sketches shuffled together into a flip-book. If it seems like a good idea, he doesn’t see why they can’t just flip to the next page.

He’s mostly zoned out, chewing on his lip ring and staring into space, when he notices that Gerard has caught him at it. He shrugs a little, blowing out a breath, and curls up in a different position on the couch.

Gerard doesn’t do anything for a few minutes, and then he says, “Stop trying to put everything into words.”

The smartass part of Frank is ready to come back with, ‘You never stop trying to put everything into pictures,’ but it’s petty and neither of them is actively trying to pick a fight, so he doesn’t say it.

He pokes at his lip ring for a while longer, thinking it through, and finally asks, “Why don’t we, though?”

Gerard still has that faraway look in his eyes, but he doesn’t ask what Frank’s talking about, just shrugs. “Because naked cuddling isn’t as good?”

Frank favors Gerard with his best skeptical look. “I don’t know,” he says doubtfully. “Naked cuddling is pretty awesome.”

Gerard laughs, the truncated little ‘ha’ that always makes Frank smile when he hears it. “We could make a list,” he suggests. “Of the reasons we don’t fuck.”

“As long as naked cuddling isn’t on it,” Frank concedes. “Because naked cuddling _rules._ ”

Gerard’s mouth quirks up into a lopsided smile. “You said there were lots of reasons,” he points out, and his smile widens, eyes sharpening as the distant look fades. “Better get your pencil out, motherfucker.”

*

They put the list up on the fridge, beneath the drawing of Frank being strangled and molested by an alien octopus, big anime eyes wrapped up in tentacles. Gerard had drawn it for Bob, right after the time Frank ate Bob’s entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses and left the wrappers in his bed.

Whenever Frank does something that really pisses Bob off, Gerard usually tries to make it up to him by drawing a picture of something horrible happening to Frank. Usually it’s spectacularly gruesome and involves decapitation. Frank personally thinks those are Bob’s favorites; the one of Frank losing both arms in a freak blender accident is still hanging in Bob’s bunk.

“What the fuck is this?” Ray asks the next morning, when Frank is bright-eyed and perky and Gerard is still blinking blearily at the world from behind the shelter of his coffee mug.

“Gerard and I are making a list of reasons we don’t fuck,” Frank supplies helpfully. It’s currently a short list; Frank had started things off with _‘showers bi-monthly,’_ Gerard had retaliated with _‘too short for frottage’_ – which, what the fuck ever, Frank was _awesome_ at frottage – and they had both agreed on _‘not enough room in the bunks.’_

“Oh,” Ray says after a minute, a puzzled frown hovering over his face. “That’s cool.”

“Are we all allowed to get in on this?” Bob asks, bouncing a rubber super-ball on the tabletop. “I could come up with a few.”

“Condoms are expensive,” Gerard contributes suddenly. Frank stares at him for a few seconds, trying to follow the logic-trail of breadcrumbs through the labyrinth of Gerard’s mind.

“That’s more of an argument against having sex with anyone, though,” Ray points out thoughtfully. “Not just Frank.”

“And we could still have blowjobs,” Frank points out, catching on quickly, just as Mikey walks in through the doorway leading to the bunks and stops dead in his tracks.

He rubs his eyes, obviously still waking up, and then says, “Ew,” and, “Please tell me you’re not still talking about having sex with my brother.”

“We’re talking about me _not_ having sex with your brother,” Frank corrects. Bob bounces the ball across to him and Frank sends it back by way of the windowpane. “We made a list.”

Mikey stops to consider the list, then picks up a pen from the table and writes carefully, _‘for Mikey’s sanity.’_

“I heard you and that girl once,” Gerard says mildly, sipping at his coffee.

“Oh god,” Ray moans, intercepting the pen from Mikey and adding, _‘because we’d all have to_ hear _it.’_

“Give it here,” Bob says, holding out his hand for the pen. Frank takes advantage of his distraction to tackle him over the tabletop, nearly knocking over two glasses and a bowl full of cereal in the process, and wrestle him into a chokehold.

“It’s our list,” he argues, clinging like a spider monkey and fortifying his position before Bob gathers the presence of mind to start beating him. “Get your own.”

“Oh hey,” Gerard says suddenly, perking up a bit. “What about the fact that I would crush you, you skinny fuck?”

“Wait,” Frank objects, pausing in his hand-swatting defense. “Who said you get to top?”

“Oh my _god,_ ” Mikey complains loudly, before stealing Gerard’s coffee and stomping back out of the kitchenette. Frank forgets to evade Bob’s punches because he’s staring at Gerard, and ends up with a fist clipping his cheekbone. He would _never_ risk life and limb to take Gerard’s coffee first thing in the morning, not even on a dare.

Well, okay. Maybe on a dare.

“What?” Gerard asks. He gets up to pour himself a fresh cup of coffee and shrugs, which Frank understands to mean that this is one of those things only Mikey gets away with, purely by virtue of being Mikey. Gerard pauses to take a sip, then adds reminiscently, “I really did hear him having sex once, though.”

Frank starts giggling. Bob bounces the ball in Gerard’s direction, and it lands in his coffee with a plop. Gerard blinks, apparently only now becoming aware that there was a missile incoming, and frowns perplexedly at his coffee mug.

Frank points at Ray, who’s still the closest to the fridge, and says, “Terrible hand-eye coordination; can’t be good in bed.”

Gerard calmly turns around, writes _’sucks at sweet talking,’_ and pours himself another cup of coffee.

*

There are only so many times one band can soundcheck before it gets really fucking boring. Frank doesn’t do anything to fuck up the mix, playing at his normal volume, but he starts pushing the beat, just a little. Bob doesn’t falter, although he does frown and then start glaring, but Gerard gets caught somewhere between the two of them, and Mikey follows Gerard.

Ray stops playing and tells Gerard that he’s throwing them all off the beat. Frank smirks.

“I can’t hear, I’ve got Bob in one ear and Frank in the other, and Frank is louder,” Gerard defends, wrapping the microphone cord around his arm so he can let it dangle from his wrist while he gets a drink of water.

“Frank, stop fucking up,” Bob orders, twirling his sticks the way he always does when they stop, like he needs to stay in motion or he’ll lose the vibe. Frank makes a mental note to jump on Bob’s drums during the performance.

“Can we please focus?” Ray complains. Mikey just plays his chord again, unmoved but probably eager – as eager as Mikey gets, anyway – to be done with this so he can go hang out with people who aren’t them.

They start up again, and Frank plays the same familiar chords right on the fucking beats for at least five minutes, and then he gets bored again. He starts sliding behind, but slowly, just to see how far he can bring Gerard with him. When they’re nearly a full beat behind, Bob crashes them to a halt and throws a drumstick at Frank’s head.

“I’m not messing up the levels,” Frank says, taking refuge behind Mikey in case Bob decides to throw the other stick.

“You’re a fucking lunatic with the attention span of a two-year-old,” Gerard tells him, but he doesn’t actually seem all that bothered. Probably because sound checks are just as boring for him. He usually just wanders around a lot and occasionally breaks into scat.

Frank hangs his guitar over Gerard’s head and plays around him, just for variety. Ray shakes his head and says, “Put it on the fucking list.”

“That could be either of them, though,” Bob comments, and Gerard looks appropriately injured, even though he’s absent-mindedly picking at Frank’s strings while they wait to get started again. Frank hooks his chin over Gerard’s shoulder and watches him play, nodding when Gerard gets the fingering right. When Gerard runs out of chords he knows, Frank takes over on the frets and lets Gerard strum.

“Put it on both sides,” Ray says, exasperated but without the impatient note to his voice that he always gets when he’s actually upset with them. Them, in most cases, meaning Frank.

Frank looks up from where he and Gerard are collaboratively playing a progression of minor chords. He’s not really paying much attention to the rest of them anymore, focused on Gerard’s head bent over his guitar and his fingers on Frank’s strings. “Wait, are we keeping score?”

“We should,” Gerard says thoughtfully, nudging at Frank’s fingers until they’re in the right place for him to play the next chord. “There can’t be that many reasons you don’t want to sleep with me, I would totally win.”

Frank stretches up on his toes to bite Gerard’s shoulder, hard enough to leave a bruise, and says, “Oh, it’s on now, motherfucker.”

*

Frank spends the rest of the time before their show burning off excess energy by running around behind all of the stages with Bob, putting lemonade in the water coolers so it looks like people are drinking piss. It’s not their best prank by far, but it gives him something to do, and it requires a lot of Frank’s best skills, like being a sneaky little shit and running away fast.

He loves harassing Bob, but Bob is actually a better accomplice than he is victim. He has good ideas, and he’s menacing enough that people don’t give him a hard time, but he also looks too cool to be doing dumb shit, so no one ever suspects him.

Frank points this out while Bob is giving him a piggyback ride to the last stage they haven’t hit yet. There’s a band onstage singing about singing, which makes Frank snigger, but they’re keeping the tech staff and crowd distracted enough that Frank can sidle up to the cooler and empty the last bottle of Minute Maid.

Frank makes a running leap for the safety of Bob’s back just as the band, minus the lead singer and a lone guitar player, troop offstage to take a break and rehydrate. He buries his face in Bob’s neck and giggles until they’re safely away.

“You’re good at this,” he says again as they head towards their own stage, moving through the aimless jumble of musicians and techs who are either done for the day or still waiting for their turn. “Together we’re unstoppable.”

“Are you going to walk now?” Bob asks, hefting Frank up a little to keep him stable. Frank’s jeans don’t make the leap with him, and he thinks he’s probably only a couple of minutes away from flashing everyone back here a few inches of his ass crack, but he doesn’t want to give up his perch while Bob is still mostly agreeable and not trying to punch him in the kidneys.

“No,” he replies cheerfully, kicking his legs to see if he can get his jeans back up without tipping them over. Bob staggers a little and smacks Frank on the leg, but Frank thinks he was at least partly successful.

Gerard and Ray are backstage when they arrive, hanging out in the hallway because that’s where the fan is. Ray’s hair blows in all directions when he turns around to face them. Frank thinks he looks kind of like one of those giant underwater anemones.

“I love Bob,” Frank announces, because he means it and also because sometimes Bob lets him hang off of him longer when Frank is on good behavior.

“Where’s Mikey?” Bob asks. They have another twenty minutes before they usually all like to be backstage, but it never hurts to check up on each other. When you’re playing at a different time every day, it’s easy to forget.

“Fall Out Boy,” Gerard says. He’s smoking and sketching something, hair sticking to his neck in sweaty clumps.

“Down,” Bob says, but he doesn’t drop Frank on his ass like he sometimes does, so Frank counts it as a win. He thinks about making a list of reasons he would fuck Bob, just to freak him out, but he doesn’t think Gerard would appreciate it. There would probably be a massive temper tantrum, most likely misdirected into a fight about who drank the last Dr. Pepper. Gerard thinks he’s obscure and unfathomable when he’s upset about something, but in truth he’s about as opaque as saran wrap.

Then again, it could be fun. Frank decides to turn it into Reasons I Would Accept Bob As My Platonic Life Partner and sticks it under Bob’s practice pad, where Gerard has also left a drawing of Frank being eaten by piranhas. It has a certain pleasing symmetry to it.

He still jumps off of Bob’s drum kit and kicks over one of his cymbals during the show. Bob is probably expecting it at this point, and Frank doesn’t want to disappoint him.

*

“Pizza!” comes the call from outside, accompanied by a heavy thump on the bus door.

Frank yanks it open and Gerard beams at him, half of his face hidden behind his ridiculous sunglasses, arms full of pizza boxes. Mikey is right behind him with chips and drinks.

“Is this for me?” Frank asks, relieving Gerard of the smaller box on top and inhaling deeply. It’s like an unwritten rule that you have to smell the pizza before you eat it, or you’re missing out on part of the experience.

The box in question contains a small no-cheese with vegetables and a honey-wheat vegan crust. “You know I treat you right, baby,” Gerard says, his face contorting in a way that probably means he’s waggling his eyebrows behind the face-eating shades.

He dumps the pizza boxes on the table, where they’re immediately set upon by Bob, who’s listening to something screechy and metal through his headphones at a deafening volume. He tugs them out to ask, “Should we get Ray?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Frank advises, ripping off a paper towel from the roll on the counter. “He has amazing food radar.”

“He can sense take-out within fifty feet,” Gerard agrees. “It’s a talent.”

Frank nearly loses his toppings when he tries to take a bite, and the resulting sloppy grab for them leaves him with a piece of broccoli stuck in his lip ring. “Motherfucker,” he says with feeling, trying to pick it out without pulling the ring itself.

“That’s what you get for sticking needles everywhere,” Gerard tells him, sitting cross-legged on the couch with a slice of pizza in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Frank sends a paper plate soaring in his direction.

“Not everywhere,” Mikey points out with a snicker, because Mikey is twelve, and he’s been hanging out with Pete all morning, which inevitably makes it worse.

“Would you ever get a Prince Albert?” Bob asks, chewing on his own lip ring like he’s considering the possibility.

Frank and Mikey say, “Fuck no,” in unison. Gerard just shudders in horror and squeezes his eyes closed.

“It might be cool, though,” Frank admits. He’s had enough needles stuck through parts of his body to at least entertain the thought. He rolls onto his back and nudges Gerard’s ankle with his foot. “Hey, would you have sex with someone who had a Prince Albert?”

“That’s just gross,” Mikey intones solemnly. He’s making a mess of his sauce, so Frank throws a balled-up paper towel at him.

Ray’s head suddenly appears through the doorway leading from the studio. “Do I smell pizza?”

“Food radar,” Gerard reiterates, and pushes the full box across the table towards Ray.

“What’s going on?” Ray asks. He sounds energized; probably because he’s just spent the past four hours playing with a guitar and thousands of dollars’ worth of recording equipment. Ray’s kind of a geek about stuff like that.

“Cock needles,” Frank says, and then giggles so hard that when Gerard gets up and pushes him lightly in the shoulder, he tips right over.

“Hey, you never answered,” Mikey says from where he’s sprawled out on the floor. “Would you fuck somebody who had a pierced penis?”

Frank is sure he knows the answer to this, and is in fact about to toss Gerard a pencil so he can write _’too many piercings’_ on the refrigerator, but after a moment of thought Gerard finally says, “I don’t know. Not just because of that, I guess. But maybe.”

Ray looks scandalized. “Who got their dick pierced?” he asks. He’s staring right at Bob when he asks, which Frank finds so funny that he nearly tips over again.

“No one,” Gerard explains. “We’re speaking hypothetically.”

“It’s like haiku,” Frank adds, and then waves his hand and sends the entire paper towel roll careening across the floor towards Ray, who is paying no attention to the drooping slice of pizza in his hand. “Don’t make a mess,” he says, because potato chip crumbles are one thing, but tomato sauce and melted cheese ground into the carpet is just gross. Frank has to live on this bus.

He’s still keeping one eye on the sliding cheese, so he almost misses it when Gerard uncaps a pen and writes something on the list. “Hey, what?” Frank asks, trying to get a look.

Mikey leans over Gerard’s shoulder and grins. “Neat freak,” he says, with the glee of someone who’s been getting shit from Frank about what a toxic waste dump he is for years now. In Frank’s opinion, it still doesn’t make that fact any less valid.

“Sometimes you want to get down and dirty, you know?” Gerard says, smiling as he caps the pen again. He’s one to talk, Frank thinks. Tour conditions or no tour conditions, Gerard still hasn’t seen soap and water for at least a week longer than the rest of them.

“I get dirty,” Frank protests. Even if he didn’t, sex would be the exception to the rule. There’s nothing wrong with working up a sweat in the name of great orgasms.

“No, I mean, like, really fucking filthy,” Gerard argues, gesturing vaguely. “Covered in sweat and spunk and rolling around in the wet spot and fucking for so long you just reek.”

There’s a beat, and then Bob comments, “Wow, you must be really popular with the ladies.”

“Well, it would be different with a guy,” Gerard says defensively. “There are two dicks involved. That’s a lot of semen.”

“He has a point,” Ray admits.

Frank is still disgruntled that Gerard thinks he couldn’t have marathon filthy sweaty sex without reaching for the Purell.

“Cock needle semen,” he mutters, as a general fuck-you to the room, but then it’s so funny he starts snickering and says it again.

“I’ll cock needle semen you,” Gerard retorts. Frank laughs harder and somehow ends up getting tomato sauce on his sneaker.

*

They’re doing something for the local radio station in the afternoon, a meet-and-greet with some contest winners. They arrive before the thing is supposed to start, so Frank draws on Gerard’s knuckles with his Sharpie while they wait, tattooing block letters across his skin. Gerard is busy talking to Mikey, so he only throws a quick glance in Frank’s direction, enough to make sure that he isn’t planning to cover his hand in fake blood or cut his fingernails off.

He writes out ‘GIVE E’ on Gerard’s hand, filling out the letters and elaborating until it looks almost like tattoo art. It’s not as good as it would be if it was Gerard drawing, but it still looks cool, so he reaches for Gerard’s other hand and finishes, ‘M HELL’.

Gerard keeps casting quick looks over at what Frank is doing, but he doesn’t really pay attention, distracted by a debate that seems to be mostly about whether or not unicorns who impaled people would have horns stained red, or if the blood wouldn’t stick because they’re so pure. Frank doesn’t have an opinion one way or another, so he keeps drawing.

The kids start filing in just as he puts the finishing touches to the last letter. It’s slow going with everyone stopping to talk to them, so in between signing things, whenever Gerard has a hand free, Frank continues his masterpiece. Gerard barely notices, once simply switching mid-conversation to continue gesticulating with the hand not currently in Frank’s possession.

He’s drawn little bats and dangling spiders and a sleek black cat underneath the ‘G’ when the girl next in line asks, “Are you giving him a manicure?”

“Needle-free tattoos,” Frank tells her, and grins. “I would if I had any polish, though.”

Her friend looks embarrassed, but pulls a miniature bottle of black nail polish out of her purse and holds it up. “I have some, if you want.”

“Seriously? You don’t mind?” She shakes her head and he takes the bottle, unscrewing the top. “That’s cool, thank you so much. Hey, do you want me to sign anything? What are your names?”

When the meet-and-greet is finally over and they’re waiting for the follow-up interview with the station, Frank steals Gerard’s hand back. He paints black crescents at the tips of Gerard’s fingernails, smearing a lot at first but getting progressively better as he goes. Gerard pays no attention whatsoever until he’s on the fourth nail, and then he looks over, smiling with that look he gets sometimes, like he’s not sure whether he should be smiling or not because the joke is probably on him. “Are you giving me a manicure?” he asks.

“French manicure,” Frank corrects, drawing a careful but still crooked curve around the tip of Gerard’s thumbnail.

“Gothic French manicure,” Ray puts in from the other side, leaning over to get a better look at Frank’s handiwork.

“You should charge for this shit,” Gerard says, holding out his hand and examining it. He holds up his hand and strikes a pose. “I think I look dead fucking sexy.”

“I’d do you,” Frank agrees, trying to get hold of Gerard’s other hand so he can paint it to match.

Bob says, “No you wouldn’t,” from the far end of the table, and Frank sticks out his tongue. He knows now where the rest of this nail polish is going after Bob falls asleep tonight.

“I would if there wasn’t a list,” Frank defends, tugging on Gerard’s sleeve until he finally stops posing and lets Frank have his hand.

Mikey pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “Thank god for the list.”

*

Just after midnight, Frank looks up from his magazine and takes a deep, suspicious sniff. The curtains to Bob and Ray’s bunks are closed, and Mikey’s still out partying, so there’s only one place the smell could be coming from. Then again, there’s only one person who constantly steals all of his food anyway.

Setting his magazine aside, he carefully wraps his arms around his torso, flattens himself out into a plank, and rolls off the side of his bunk.

He hits the ground with a loud thump, soon followed by the sound of Gerard cracking his head on the top of his bunk and yelling, “Jesus Christ, Frank!”

Frank sits up so he can enjoy the sight of Gerard cowering against the wall of his bunk, one hand on the back of his head and mouth hanging open, eyes huge. “You’re always scaring the shit out of me!” Gerard exclaims, rubbing his head gingerly. “I’m fucking putting that on the list.”

“You’re always eating my food,” Frank counters, instantly validated by the guilty look that steals swiftly over Gerard’s features. “I’m putting _that_ on the list.”

“No one is putting anything on the goddamn list,” Bob bellows from behind his curtain, and Frank knows when self-preservation is the better part of valor, so he climbs into Gerard’s bunk to continue harassing him at a lower volume.

“I’m starving. Is there any more?” Frank asks, following his nose in search of the plate he knows Gerard must have hidden somewhere.

Gerard’s expression becomes immediately guiltier, but he pulls a plate with a sandwich out from under a battered notebook and offers it to Frank. “I made fake-bacon, lettuce and tomato. I can make something else, though. Do you want it?”

“Split,” Frank offers. He’s always running out of food he can actually eat, especially on this tour, but Gerard has become addicted to vegan fake-meat products, so it’s not like he doesn’t have help.

“Thanks,” Gerard says, accepting half of the sandwich and peeling off bits of lettuce poking out the sides. It sticks on his front teeth when he adds, “Sorry.”

“It’s cool.” Frank licks tomato juice off of his thumb and grins. “You should put this on the list of reasons why you _would_ fuck me. My generous and giving nature.”

Gerard smiles and leans back against the wall of his bunk, cradling his sandwich in both marker-covered hands and getting bread crumbs all over his pajama pants. “We’re not making that list, though,” he points out. “I think it might give Mikey an ulcer.”

“It should negate one of the other reasons, then,” Frank decides. “Strike one off the list for each of my good qualities.”

Gerard shakes his head. He’s doing that shy, earnest thing that kills Frank every time, even if its power has been lessened now that there’s no longer hair falling over his eyes. “We can’t do that. You have a lot more going for you than against you; there wouldn’t be any more reasons left.”

Frank takes another bite of his sandwich. He watches Gerard chase a breadcrumb caught at the corner of his mouth with his tongue, and fail entirely to get it off. Frank swallows, contemplates another bite of sandwich, and ends up asking, “Why don’t we?”

Gerard shrugs, although he’s looking thoughtful, chewing slowly and getting more crumbs on his pajamas. “Because I love you,” he offers finally.

Frank mulls that over for a while. “That’s a fucking retarded reason,” he decides.

“We might fuck up the band,” Gerard points out, as if this is a completely logical discussion to be having at midnight over FLTs. “All the emotional shit.”

“We might fuck it up anyway,” Frank counters. “Unresolved sexual tension.”

Gerard looks intrigued. “Do you think we have sexual tension?”

Frank shrugs, jamming the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. “Maybe,” he says. He’s not sure what to call it, what they have. He’s never tried to come up with a description.

“We’re like brothers, too, though,” Gerard says, and then he starts explaining about how they’re connected and how Frank’s one of the best friends he’s ever had, how what they have transcends sex – _transcends sex,_ Frank thinks, _really?_ – and how their relationship is a reflection of all of that, and trying to change it might destroy what they’ve built together on a fundamental level.

Frank lets him go, because he knows that there’s no chance at reasoning with Gerard when he’s off on a ramble; you just have to ride it out and wait for him to wind down. Gerard eventually meanders to a halt, finishes with, “You know?” and looks at Frank like he’s expecting Frank to nod and agree with his argument.

Frank leans in and kisses him.

It’s not all that erotic, and mostly just tastes like vegan bacon. Frank pulls back and licks the corner of Gerard’s lips to get the breadcrumb, and Gerard smiles lopsidedly.

“I guess none of the reasons were all that important anyway,” he admits.

Frank grins, and goes in for a second pass. When Gerard brings his hands up to touch Frank’s face, Frank turns his head and starts sucking on Gerard’s fingers, feeling smug and slightly wicked. “Hey,” Gerard says with encouraging breathlessness. “Don’t fuck up my nails.”

Gerard’s smile is a little goofy. Frank kind of wants to lick it a lot. “Do you want to help me paint Bob’s fingernails black?” he asks, while he’s thinking about it. Gerard isn’t as good an accomplice as Bob, mainly because he sucks at any type of subterfuge, but Frank likes having him on his side anyway.

Gerard tilts his head to one side, absently petting Frank’s lip ring with wet fingers while he considers. “No, but I’ll cover for you tomorrow when he tries to hang you off the back of the bus.”

“Yeah, okay,” Frank agrees. He climbs into Gerard’s lap and thanks god Gerard has the presence of mind to tug his curtain closed, because Frank has his attention on other things.

Gerard sticks his hands under Frank’s shirt, just far enough that he can touch skin. Frank kisses him again because he can, and also because he’s really starting to like sucking on Gerard’s tongue. Gerard falls back and brings Frank with him, and they bang around for a few seconds getting settled before Frank asks, “Blowjob?”

Gerard’s mouth is open, lips forming a little ‘oh’ as Frank grinds down with his hips. “I was actually thinking we could just rub up against each other like horny teenagers,” he admits.

“Oh hey,” Frank responds enthusiastically. “That’s cool too.” He works at getting their pants down, laughing when Gerard has the same idea, and then peels his shirt off.

Gerard runs his hands over Frank’s chest, his expression almost wondering, like he hasn’t seen and touched Frank’s skin a hundred times before. It’s actually really fucking hot.

“God,” Frank groans when Gerard hooks a leg over Frank’s thigh for leverage, and then laughs. “I knew you would be the bottom.”

Gerard licks his lips and looks up blankly, either confused or distracted by the way their cocks are sliding together. “I didn’t want you to feel trapped,” he explains belatedly.

Frank blinks, and then does his very best to maul Gerard’s mouth with his tongue. Gerard makes appreciative noises and humps Frank’s thigh, looking for more friction. “Fuck,” he breathes when Frank reaches down and squeezes their cocks.

“Too short for frottage my _ass_ ,” Frank mutters, and then has to concentrate on breathing for a while, and also on keeping Gerard from writhing his way out of the bunk and onto the floor.

“Frank,” Gerard says plaintively, rocking up into his fist, and Frank abruptly has to stifle giggles against Gerard’s shoulder. The engine noise is covering some of it, but the rustling and squeak-squeak noises they’re making are unmistakable to anyone who might be still awake and listening. Frank has a feeling that tomorrow Ray will be begging them to go back to just kissing.

Frank really doesn’t want to be the one to come first, but Gerard’s mouth is all glossy from Frank’s tongue, and when Frank squeezes, Gerard’s eyelashes do this slow-motion fluttery thing that Frank thinks should probably be illegal.

“Fuck,” he says, and comes all over Gerard’s stomach.

Gerard gives him all of two seconds to pant and come down, and then starts humping Frank’s leg again in a pointed reminder that he hasn’t gotten off yet. “Frank,” he says impatiently, and then his jaw snaps satisfyingly shut when Frank smears his hand through his own come and goes back to fisting Gerard’s cock.

“Down and dirty, right?” Frank breathes, licking the exposed side of Gerard’s neck.

“Nngh,” Gerard replies, and then chokes when Frank sinks his teeth into the bruise he’d left on Gerard’s shoulder. “Fuck, fuck, _Frank_.”

Gerard makes a gratifying amount of noise when he comes. Frank muffles it by sticking his tongue in Gerard’s mouth again, and grins smugly afterwards, wiping his hand off on Gerard’s chest for good measure. Gerard makes a face at him but doesn’t protest, even when Frank wiggles around to plaster their sweaty, come-smeared bodies together.

He lets Gerard play with his earlobe for a while, then nips at Gerard’s mouth and says, “We should rip up the list.”

“Nah,” Gerard replies, with a sly little smile. “Let them think they’re winning.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Reasons We Don't](https://archiveofourown.org/works/320976) by [greedy_dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer)




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